An Australian citizen with a “severe picture of pneumonia and COVID-19 symptoms” was landed this Friday by the Uruguayan Navy from a ship that is anchored a few kilometers from the port of Montevideo with other passengers awaiting entry authorization. .
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The spokesman for the Navy, Diego Perona, explained to Efe that the Australian citizen had pneumonia in her medical history, to which the symptoms of COVID-19 were added.
Similarly, he recalled that another passenger from the same cruise ship had already been evacuated a few days ago and tested positive for COVID-19 and is in the ICU (Intensive Care) in a private hospital in Montevideo.
The man in his 60s was transferred Tuesday, according to the video recorded by a woman on board and broadcast by the Australian newspaper The Sydney Morning Herald, from a small boat with specialists dressed in a protective suit.
The company Aurora Expeditions issued a statement on Thursday in which it recognized that several passengers on the Greg Mortimer cruise ship had symptoms of COVID-19.
In this sense, Perona explained that inside the boat are 132 passengers and 85 crew members, of whom “several have a fever.”
In a press conference offered this Friday, the Uruguayan chancellor, Ernesto Talvi, commented that “only people who have a clear risk of life can descend from the ship, such as the two already evacuated, and confirmed that laboratory personnel are inside of the ship with 216 test kits from 16:15 local time (19:15 GMT) this Friday.
“All passengers, the entire crew will be tested for coronaviruses. Those who test positive will be isolated in one part of the ship, while healthy people will stay in another part to avoid contagion,” said the head of the diplomacy. Uruguayan.
The Greg Mortimer operation will be “the last” of the so-called “humanitarian corridor”, whereby 734 people of 41 nationalities have been able to return to their homes through Uruguay, Talvi explained.
The message, he recalled, is “forceful and clear: no passenger will be allowed to disembark unless there is a critical life situation for humanitarian reasons” or when a plane arrives from Australia prepared for the repatriation of its citizens.
The director of operations of the shipping company, Robert Halfpenny, reported that there are “nine people with fever on the cruise, three of them new cases in the last 24 hours,” including the ship’s doctor.
The company asked the Uruguayan Ministry of Public Health to disembark the passengers.
The British ambassador to Uruguay, Ian Duddy, wrote on his Twitter account on Thursday that he is “in contact” with the Government of Uruguay to clarify the situation of this cruise, which also has passengers of that nationality.
“Due to illness on board, passengers do not have permission to disembark. The Government of Uruguay has assured us that those who require hospital care will receive them,” he said.
